SARS-CoV-2: Evolution of a virus

“SARS-CoV-2 could always pick up a mutation that could just change the game,” Pardis Sabeti, a Harvard computational geneticist explains in this video exploring the basics of how viruses evolve as they infect more people. Sabeti and others use math and genetics to monitor new variants and provide insight into viral origins and spread.
“One of the things that a lot of people feel complacent about is that [Covid-19] seems to affect people that are mostly elderly … or, you know, mostly not them,” she says. “But at any point this virus could change and affect them. It can become more lethal. It could become more lethal to our children. It can evade our vaccines. And so it’s one of those things where you just don’t want to give it a minute to change in a way that’s particularly bad.”
It’s clear, she says, that “the best thing we can do is to get the infection rates to zero so that the virus has no opportunities to mutate and change.”
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[@ambarnag]

Very nicely explained, thank you for this!

[@KnowableMagazine]

Thanks for watching!

[@soulsurvivor8293]

@@KnowableMagazine The thing I find odd is no one is discussing or alarmed about its odd mutation rate, given the base viruses genome and it mutation rate is lower than influenza. I suspect it may have to do with its evolutionary path, it's mutation by interacting with other corona viruses. Since it's Zoonotic shift it has a plethora of new corona viruses to interact with in humans. I am glad the last words in the video emphasise the reason in reducing infections being to limit its opportunities to mutate. Something I wish was expressed in the news more.

[@ricochete5875]

2 eh? What was 1?

[@KandyBoy69]

Sars, was a virus back in the early 2000s that has been taken care of before it became a pandemic.

[@preetiis458]

I sars 2 now. Please tell me I can save my life or not??

[@mattgwiazdon8845]

SARS-CoV-1: “SARS outbreak of 2003, about 9% of patients with confirmed SARS-CoV-1 infection died. The mortality rate was much higher for those over 60 years old, with mortality rates approaching 50% for this subset of patients.”